Removing surface mount chips

[Vertigo]

Help!
I'm having real trouble with this.
Have tried heating the pin and lifting with a needle but I'm getting nowhere at all, nothing's moving.
Any ideas?
Thanks.

[NFG]

If you don't need the chip just cut the legs off and use the iron to heat and remove the remaining bits.  Be sure not to cut them so violently you tear the traces off the board.

If you want to keep the chip then you're in for a long day.  Heat, pry, repeat.  That's all there is to it.  I recommend a small flat screwdriver instead of a needle though.

[phreak97]

yeah, also if you add extra solder to the the pins it refluxes the old solder and makes it easyer to melt, i usually add solder then remove it again with desoldering braid before i start lifting pins.. dont remove it all though or you wont be able to melt through under the pin.
it's a long and tedious task, but i've done it a few times without much trouble.. i desoldered my nintendo ds card slot! only to find the 'dual' arm 7 and 9 cpu's under it are combined into one single completely useless to work with ball grid array ic:( that kills my dream of a gba link. the gba link circuit goes directly into the arm7 in a gba, i figured if they used a gba type arm7 in the ds i could build off that, but no luck.
*phreak97 hates ball grid arrays

i managed to drift way off topic. sorry.

[Vertigo]

The chip is the bit that I want, and it's proving a real pain in the arse to get.
I'm trying to get the controller chip out of a SNES pad. It's so close to the board that I can't even get a pin head underneath the chip itself.
I've managed to slide the pin down the side between then legs and the board, but still having a world of trouble lifting the bastards.
I couldn't find any solder braid in Maplins, and when I asked the guy looked at me like I was an alien, which isn't unusual. Their solder suckers were more than I have money for, my bank account is empty <_<  

[NFG]

Just take a dremel or saw to the PCB and cut the whole chip out.  It'll be easier to solder to the chip while it's still on the PCB.

[Vertigo]

In this case, I think it really isn't.
The legs are tiny and leave no real margin for error, which I'll do a lot of, whereas if I remove it I can seperately work on each leg more easily.
I'm going to try again, by flowing solder onto the joints and then trying to remove.
Going to try cutting through the traces also, to see if that makes it easier.

[phreak97]

the snes controller chip is just two nes chips in one package. so what you can do, is buy two original nes controllers, desolder the chips from each, then wire them together as shown in the gamesx schematic. the results are, a much larger package, but the nes controller chips have pins that go right through the board, so theyre much easyer to work with overall.

[viletim!]

Removing SMD ICs is really easy with a hot air gun. Just heat up the chip, give thr board a whack, and it just slides off (along with some surrounding components :). Though you'd have probably tried that already if you had one...

In addition to what others have mentioned, if the IC is small, like a 16 pin SOIC, you could try adding loads of solder to one side (so all the pins are hot) and, while heating with a high wattage iron, lift up one side of the IC. Once you've lifted it a bit remove all the excess solder with solder wick and attack the other side.

[Hojo_Norem]

I couldn't find any solder braid in Maplins, and when I asked the guy looked at me like I was an alien, which isn't unusual. Their solder suckers were more than I have money for, my bank account is empty <_<

I have notice that these days de-soldering braid goes by the name of soldamop.  Anyway, I have had good experience with CPC where is you order by phone before 7.00PM you will most likely get your bits the next day via UPS!  I tried Maplins once and was burned by the experience.  I used one of their catalouge cd-roms to print a order and when they sent it me I discovered that the cd-rom has priced the stuff  to low (it was a current edition at the time) and I ended up having to send the rest to make it up.  

[Vertigo]

Maplin did appear to be somewhat pricey when I went in there, and seem to no longer sell seperate components in the actual shops, it's all kit stuff or bags of 200 various capacitors. I haven't ordered a catalogue yet because they're �4 and I have oooh... �none.
Thanks for the advice about CPC, will have a look at them too, any reliable alternative to Maplin is worth trying.

[phreak97]

i still stand by using nes chips to build a snes controller if youre inexperienced with smd

[NFG]

You don't even need two NES pad chips, the 744021 is a common chip any decent electronics dealer should either stock or be able to order quickly.

[phreak97]

oh, really? that's awesome.. i didnt realize